


damages + deliberations

by sarahxxxlovey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Ron Weasley, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Showers, Supportive Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26027590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahxxxlovey/pseuds/sarahxxxlovey
Summary: Ron pushed the door open, throwing the protection charms back up after he locked it again, and walked towards the first sound he heard, a distant rustling in the kitchen.“Hermione, love?” he called, setting his stuff down slowly as his shoulder protested, “I’m home.”She peeked her head out around the corner with a grin that immediately slid into a frown.She rushed towards him. “Oh, Merlin, what happened—”[[ Ron's injured, and Hermione, like always, is there to help. ]]
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	damages + deliberations

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so my apologies for any errors :) I hope you enjoy xx

Ron winced as he unlocked the door to their flat.

It had been a rough day — and there were always a lot of rough days. But today, this had been a particularly bad one. Another bad guy and more dark magic, dodging of killing curses, and close calls. 

And an errant hex had reflected off of a blind corner and gotten him right as the team was apprehending the final suspect. And it had hurt like a son of a bitch. The spot of impact was still smarting on his shoulder and radiating up his neck. 

It was bad enough that he had to be taken into St. Mungo’s. His partner, Rubens, had side-by-side apparated them back to HQ and immediately dragged him through the permanent Floo stop into the wing where Aurors always got treated. Initially, he had tried to protest but the pain was flaring and he knew that she was right; he needed medic help and fast. Things were starting to blur in front of his eyes, swimming slightly and the errant thought ran through his mind that the floor tiles were so ugly, they’d probably be improved if he were to happen to get sick all over them.

“Shut up, Weasley,” she said, pushing his hurt shoulder down until he sat into the seat, a Healer already scanning his body with their wand, “sit down and shut up.”

That was the last thing he really remembered before he blacked out mildly from the pain. He knew Rubens hadn’t left, but only because they’d made a pact to never leave until the other person’s significant other was there (if the situation called for it). And even being completely zonked out from the pain and the potions the wizard was pushing down his throat, this didn’t seem _quite_ serious enough to call Hermione, so he knew Rubens was still there with him.

But other than that, he'd tried to focus on deep breaths as the pain flared dangerously behind his eyes.

He was tired of this shit. Tired of another day getting injured on the job. 

He had grimaced and thought of Hermione, waiting for him at home.

* * *

He pushed the door open, throwing the protection charms back up after he locked it again, and walked towards the first sound he heard, a distant rustling in the kitchen.

“Hermione, love?” he called, setting his stuff down slowly as his shoulder protested, “I’m home.” 

She peeked her head out around the corner with a grin that immediately slid into a frown. 

She rushed towards him. “Oh, Merlin, what happened—”

“Errant hex,” he admitted defeatedly. He didn’t even try to minimize any more; she’d just be able to see right through it. “Deflected off some metal.”

“Are you hurt?” she said, scanning his form, turning his jaw from one side of the other as she eyed his neck and face. 

“Yeah,” he groaned as one of her movements tweaked his neck. “A bit.”

“Oh, Ron,” she sighed, her brow furrowing.

“‘'M all right,” he said, leaning into her slightly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

He laughed darkly. “Not really.” 

She bit her bottom lip, looking up at him worriedly, but slightly calmer now. “Have you showered?”

“Do I smell like I have?” he joked weakly.

She half-heartedly rolled her eyes and gently nudged him towards the bathroom.

He stood in front of the mirror for a moment and looked at himself. The dark circles under his eyes, the bruises peeking out from underneath the collar of his jumper. He was already fantasizing about the shower he was going to take. Until he realized that the reality of the situation was that his shoulder hurt too much to get his own clothes off. 

Pretty pathetic situation to be in. 

Hermione appeared behind him, pulling her dressing gown tightly around her. 

Their eyes met in the mirror and he said how truly worried she was, something right beneath the surface that she clearly wasn’t telling him about. 

“‘M fine, love,” he said gently, giving her a little smile. “I could use about three weeks of sleep and a nice hot shower, but ‘m alright.”

She nodded, hugging him softly from behind and laying a small kiss between his shoulder blades.

“You really do smell,” she said finally with a small giggle. 

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Did they give you anything for the pain?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, but apparently the other potions were more important and made the pain potion less effective.”

“Hm,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” he replied, the pain at the forefront of his mind now that it was brought to the front of his attention again.

“Can you…” she started, meeting his eyes in the mirror and gesturing vaguely at his body.

He shook his head, feeling ashamed.

“Let me help you,” she said, smiling at him despite everything.

He used to refuse the help, attempting to heal his own wounds, apply Dittany to his own cuts, get medicine for the aches and the pains, get his own shower running. 

But that was more than half a dozen injuries ago. At this point, he was tired of the pretense. Tired of coming home and pretending that he hadn’t seen another horrific thing, that he hadn’t caught another Death Eater performing unspeakable dark magic to try to bring Voldemort back from the dead, that the flashes of what he’d seen that day weren’t going to wake him up in the middle of the night. Today, at least, they had actually caught the guys. Sometimes he did weeks of reconaissance and stakeouts and the sons of bitches still slipped through his fingers. 

He used to refuse the help, but now he just let her. She said “let me help you” and he let her.

“What all is injured?” she asked softly. 

“Bruised shoulder bone, repaired ligament, killer headache.”

She took a deep breath and then nodded matter-of-factly.

It was practiced at this point. A quick wordless spell got the shower running, even the sound of it made Ron relax a little bit. She worked his good arm out of his jacket, then slowly moved it down the other shoulder, careful not to tug on the healing areas. She unbuttoned, unbuckled, and slid the garments down until they were all on a floor in front of them. But even that didn’t last long; she waved her wand and they floated off down the hall with a destination of the laundry basket in their bedroom.

He stepped carefully into the shower and willed himself not to think about the fact that she was undoubtedly undressing mere feet away from him and he could do nothing to enjoy it.

The fact made him want to hang his head and cry in the shower but instead, he took a deep breath and focused on the warm water running over his back and down his shoulder. 

He felt like a steaming pile of shit, making her take care of him like this again. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate. She had gotten a great position in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and was working long hours while trying to convince everyone at the Ministry that she wasn’t just Harry Potter’s friend, that she deserved to be where she was, that she was just as smart and hardworking as everyone else was.

And it wasn’t just the physical things, the undressing and the bathing, and how powerless that made him feel. It was the emotional stuff too, the worry in her eyes with the fact that the next injury might be more serious, that being an Auror is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Wizarding World and any case could be his last.

And here he was, practically crying in the shower as she got in behind him to bathe him because he was too weak to do it himself. 

He stubbornly pumped some shampoo into the hand on his good side and scrubbed furiously at his hair as he clenched his face, ignoring the ache in the other shoulder as it compensated.

“Come off it, Ron,” she sighed from behind him, dragging his hand down gently, her own fingers taking over the task. 

And as much as he hated to admit it to himself, she was much better at it anyway. Her nails scratched his scalp gently, melting some of the tension away with just a simple touch. He leaned down as much as he comfortably could as she stood on her tiptoes and moved his hair around to wash the shampoo out. 

“Hey,” he interrupted softly, not being able to help smiling when she looked up at him. “I love you.”

She smiled back, still focused on his hair. “I love you too.” 

“Thanks for… well,” he coughed, trying to swallow his pride. “This. Again.” 

She kissed him gently and then turned him around towards the spray, facing away from her. 

A few moments passed until he heard a gasp behind him.

“Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s just—”

“The sight of my pale, freckled ass scare you?” 

“No, no, it’s not that,” she said softly, chuckling softly. He wanted to turn around and look at her face but he could feel his shoulder screaming in protest at even the idea of interrupting what she was doing. There was a pregnant pause and the mood in the room shifted slightly, everything seeming to be more serious after just a moment.

“What is it, love?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

“Whoever healed this originally didn’t do a great job,” she said honestly, her voice tinged with sadness. “You’re probably going to have another scar.”

He chuckled and looked down at his arms and chest. “It’ll have company at least.”

“That’s not funny,” she said lightly.

“Didn’t mean it, darling,” he said, enjoying the feeling of her hands gently rubbing Dittany infused soap on his bad shoulder, her fingers as gentle as ever. The water was running slightly brown beneath him and he took a deep breath, the tension releasing a little more.

But even as his tension was decreasing, he could feel hers increasing. Her hands paused on him and after a deep breath, he turned to her.

“Do you…” she looked up at him, biting her lip. “How much longer are you going to do this?” 

He blinked, surprised at the question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she started, then swallowed thickly and rolled her eyes like she was getting annoyed she was choked up. “I mean, how much longer is this going to be our reality?”

“Hermione, I thought—”

“I’m so proud of you, you  _ know _ I am, but sometimes you come home and it feels like you’ve left a little part of yourself in every case. I don’t know…”

“Spit it out,” he chuckled in spite of himself.

“I guess I just can’t tell if this is what you want any more,” she said, biting her lip. 

He exhaled heavily and if his shoulder hadn’t been so fucked he would’ve wrapped his arms around her and held her until he couldn’t anymore. 

“To be honest, I don’t even know if I know. It’s been a long three years,” he admitted quietly. “And I feel a right bit older than 21.”

Her eyes searched his face and he was overwhelmed with affection for her, for the thousandth time, even since he got home.

“Are you still happy?” she asked quietly, brushing his hair out of his face, reaching behind him to turn the water off.

“I…” he stopped as he actually considered it. She stepped out of the shower and motioned for him to follow her.

Was he happy? 

There had been a time, fresh out of the War and 18 years old, where he’d been desperate to prove himself, desperate to get out there and make Voldemort’s followers pay for what they’d done. It had been rough and borderline vigilante, the way he’d attacked his job. Hermione was at school with Ginny and the loneliness that it left in Ron’s heart seemed neverending. He and Harry had turned Grimmauld Place into a crash-pad of sorts, sleeping there when they weren’t on missions which seemed to be constant.

Eventually, Hermione came back and moved back in with her parents for another year in an attempt to rekindle her relationship with them and build trust again. ( _ I’m only 19 and in the Muggle world I’d still be at university and living with them every summer, s _ he’d said to him.) And Ron was fine with that, but the training and the missions and the riots didn’t stop. If anything, they picked up, and he was eager for the chance to prove himself, eager for the chance to get justice and revenge on everything that his family had dealt with. 

Another year later, he and Harry had both been promoted, off merit for once in their lives, to team leads, and for the first time in a long time, they’d been split up. Part of it was okay because he and Hermione had finally moved in together, into this tiny little flat in the Wizarding part of London. And it had felt like what he was supposed to be doing, earning money, coming home to their shoebox to cook dinner for the pair of them, who somehow always got home later than him despite her working a desk job.

But then the reality of not having Harry with him on missions anymore sunk in. And the fact that they were gone at different times, and barely saw each other either in the office or in the field.

Somewhere between then and now, his passion for the job had fizzled. Maybe his appointments with the Mindhealer were finally starting to work some magic against his revenge-driven goals, but he just felt tired. It didn’t feel worth it anymore and sometimes when Harry got so excited about a new collar, or a development in a long-term case, Ron just felt numb. The rushes of adrenaline that used to excite him just felt nauseating before and when the next round of Death Eater names came through, he didn’t recognize the names on the list.

The people that he’d been trying to catch had all been caught. 

Was he happy?

A shiver ran through him as he came to a new realization, sitting on the bed in his towel.

She came and stood in front of him, holding the towel around her chest and brushing the hair out of his eyes yet again.

“You need a haircut,” she said softly, breaking the silence. He gulped and wondered if they were really going to have this conversation now.

“I’m happy with you,” he said finally.

“I should hope so,” she joked softly. “Me too.”

“Work just…” he started, grabbing her hips to pull her closer, “it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.” 

“What’s different about it?”

“It just feels like… like what was making me passionate about it in the first place isn’t there anymore,” he replied, shame filling his entire being.

Shouldn’t he be passionate about this still? He was good at his job; his promotion to tactical team lead had proven that, that he was able to strategize and foresee what their opponents would do even before other, more experienced Aurors were able to. And he was doing good. He was good at his job and he was helping to bring the bad guys in. He got great marks on his assessments and drills, his supervisor had nothing but praise for him.

And now he wanted to throw all of that away because it didn’t fulfill him anymore? Wasn’t this everything he’d ever wanted? 

“Darling,” Hermione interrupted, pulling his face up to meet hers. “You know I’m proud of you no matter what, right? You’ve done so much good for the Ministry when it was really, desperately needed but things change and that’s alright.”

“Yeah?” he asked, desperately needing reassurance without wanting to ask for it.

“You don’t have to stay at a job you’re not happy at,” she said gently, placing the hand that wasn’t holding her towel onto his cheek, her thumb rubbing gently. 

“I just…” he started, feeling his ears warm with embarrassment. “I want to do the right thing and being an Auror felt like it was the right thing and now… I dunno. Maybe it doesn’t feel perfect but I still want to be able to, you know, provide for us.” 

Hermione tried to hide a smile and the blush on her face but he caught it, dragging her to him for a quick kiss. 

“Well that’s very nice of you, but we’ll figure it out and—”

“I’ve been careful and have a bit saved up,” he admitted quietly, “I suppose I could just… not work for a while.”

“Well,” she said, her voice sounding a little more normal now, “you don’t have to make any decisions right away. You can… take your time. Feel things out, you know?”

Again, a rush of overwhelming affection for her overtook him. He pulled her face down to his and kissed her soundly, leaning back and pulling her down on top of him.

“Ron!” she squealed as he pulled her down on top of him, “Ron, your shoulder—”

“Don’t care—” he laughed, kissing down her neck.

“Stop it—” she laughed, pushing him away slightly and hitting him on his good shoulder gently. “I’m serious.”

“You’re the best girlfriend ever, you know that?” he said seriously as she laid down on her back next to him on the bed. She looked over at him and smiled. “I don’t deserve—”

“Oh, Ron—”

“Stop it, yeah?” he interrupted. “Just, just let me…” 

She looked at him curiously, turning onto her side to face him fully.

“I’m very grateful for you,” he said seriously, “I know most of the time I'm a right git but I’m very grateful for all you do for me and have been doing for me for a long time.”

She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “You’ve done the same for me, you know. I’d say we deserve each other.”

“Not the same,” he insisted, reaching down to grasp her hand.

“Right,” she replied with a grin, “you’ve done more.” 

She leaned forward and kissed him again, so soundly that he found himself desperately wishing that he didn’t have a bad shoulder right now because he’d be pulling her on top of him and then rolling her over underneath and taking off that towel, kissing down her neck and onto her —

— and to prevent himself from getting past the point of no return, he pulled away, pressing one last kiss to her lips.

“You’d really be okay if I weren’t an Auror anymore?” 

“Ron,” she sighed, but her eyes glinted slightly with excitement, “I don’t care what you do. I’m proud of you no matter what your job title is... I just want you to be happy.”

He cleared his throat. “Even if… even if it pushes back the timeline on starting our lives together?”

“Pretty sure we’ve already started our lives together, love,” she chuckled, kissing him again. 

He rolled his eyes playfully. “You know what I mean.”

“I want you to be happy,” she said surely, her eyes full of affection. “That’s what comes first. Everything else is just... details.” 

He grinned and kissed her yet again, suddenly feeling like maybe it wasn't so hopeless afterall.

**Author's Note:**

> Ron and Hermione have always been my truest OTP, but I've fallen in love with them all over again. I'll (hopefully) be publishing more with them soon, but the writer's bug hasn't been hitting me lately. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed xx


End file.
